In the conventional practice of shaping and curing a tire in a tire curing press, an uncured or green tire carcass is placed between separable mold sections which, when closed, define a tire shaped mold cavity. With the tire carcass in position, the press sections are closed and fluid media is introduced into the tire cavity under pressure to conform the tire carcass to the interior contour of the mold cavity. Most commonly, the fluid media is contained within a chamber defined by an inflatable curing and shaping bladder that is capable of being radially and axially distended by fluid media pressure into the tire cavity in order to apply shaping pressure against the interior surface of the tire carcass. Initially, hot fluid media is circulated through the bladder chamber whereby the tire carcass is cured by heat transferred from the fluid media and also by heat received from the exteriorly heated mold sections. After the requisite time period necessary to achieve vulcanization, a cold fluid media may be circulated through the bladder chamber to prevent overcure of the tire and to ready the tire for post-cure operations such as post-cure inflation. Thereafter, the cold fluid media is removed from the bladder chamber, the bladder is stripped from the tire and the tire is removed from the press. Most commonly, steam is employed as the hot fluid media and cold water as the cold fluid media.
In presses of the foregoing type, dispersed and uniform circulation of the fluid media within the bladder chamber or tire cavity is desirable to provide for uniform heat transfer to and from all areas of the tire carcass. Various attempts have been made to provide for uniform heat distribution by causing the fluid media to swirl through the bladder chamber. In the press apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,443,280, for example, the lower bladder clamp and porting assembly thereof is provided with a centrally disposed spray or nozzle ring which has a plurality of circumferential ly arranged, downwardly angled nozzles or outlets. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,887,313, another form of nozzle ring is shown, but the nozzles thereof are tangentially arranged about the periphery of the ring.
For various reasons, it also is desirable that the fluid media be introduced into the upper center portion of the bladder chamber or tire cavity. This provides for better and more efficient circulation being that the drain for the fluid media is desirably located near the bottom of the bladder or tire cavity. In addition, this would avoid bubbling of hot curing media through a volume of cold fluid media that may possibly collect in the bottom of the bladder chamber, such collected cold fluid media being that which may be purged from the fluid media supply line at the start of a new curing cycle or which otherwise possibly may be left from the previous press cycle. Needless to say, such bubbling of hot through cold fluid media is energy inefficient. It also would be desirable to provide some means for driving out of the bladder chamber any vapors or gases while the media is introduced through the bottom port.
Unfortunately, mounting of a spray or nozzle device so that fluid media outlets thereof reside in the upper center portion of the bladder chamber during cure and cooling may be precluded by other functional and structural requirements of the tire press. In presses employing upstanding bladder center mechanisms, for example, the upper and lower bladder clamps of such center mechanisms may be required to be manipulated to a relatively close axial spacing such as during bladder insertion and stripping operations, such axial spacing being substantially less than the axial spacing of the bladder clamps during cure and cooling. Accordingly, there may only be a small space between relatively closely spaced positions of the bladder clamps for accommodating any spray or nozzle device and typically such space is substantially displaced from the upper portion of the bladder chamber when the bladder is fully inflated into the tire carcass and the press is closed. It, therefore, would be desirable to have a fluid media spray or nozzle device which can allow for bladder manipulation such as in the foregoing manner and yet provide for introduction of fluid media into the upper portion of the bladder chamber during tire cure and cooling.